Apple News & Updates : Two Guys And A Podcast

Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion gave Mac users some parity with iOS users through the introduction Notification Center. OS X Notification Center is a non-intrusive way of alerting Mac users of incoming messages, like emails, appointments and OS X updates, through badges or alerts. Badges are little notifications that appear in the top right corner of the screen for five seconds then slide away. While the badge is still present, one can click it and be transported to the specific application and particular message. Alerts are a little more intrusive as they require action to be taken (close, open) before they disappear.

The idea behind Notification Center is to let the user know that a new message has come in, but not to disturb the current work flow. Notification Center also has a side bar to the right that allows for viewing of several different notifications, from different apps, all at once. That said, Notification Center has much growing up to do, and below are some suggestions we have for Notification Center in OS X 10.9:

1) Add Twitter and Facebook: iOS already has this. Why Mountain Lion did not include these two apps is a mystery. Facebook and Twitter alerts are as important (or more so) to many users than Mail and Calendar reminders.

Allow specific InBoxes or email addresses to cause a notification instead of just all messages from Mail.app.

Allow users to select how many lines of message can be displayed with in a notification. Right now the default is only one line (plus the sender). Being able to see two, three or four lines would be far more user friendly.

Finally allow users to set the time on how long a notification appears. Five seconds is a nice default, but is so draconian. Instead allow users to select the time from a reasonable range. Sometimes five seconds is just to quick to take notice and process the notification before it disappears.

3) RSS Feeds: If Apple won't put RSS Feeds back into their Mail.app, then Notification Center is the next best place to do it — and arguably a better place. Allow for the management of RSS feeds right in the heart of the OS.

In summary what we are looking for is a Notification Center that truly handles all incoming messages and alerts: email, calendar reminders, Tweets, Facebook posts, RSS feeds and more. If Apple does that with OS X 10.9, it will have a real winner on its hands.

2 Comments

Rich
~ May 08, 2013 09:45

I agree on some of these. But you can already select (to some degree) which emails trigger notifications, but it's in the Mail.app... I have mine set to contacts so no junk mail triggers an alert.
And - not sure what you're missing, but Twitter and Facebook work just fine for me. Just like iOS, I can tweet and post to Facebook right from the Notification Center. Double check the preference pane... and you have to be logged in from the OS (through accounts), not just the browser.
#

Um... Twitter and Facebook alerts?
Noooooooooooo.
For starters, if you have Tweetbot, you already have this. With much more granular control over Notifications.
I have the feeling that if Apple added this in, your machine would throw Notifications every minute. For a popular Twitter account, maybe every second.
Again... noooooooooo.
For 10.9 I'd like to see TWO THINGS with Notifications:
1/ 'Smart Notifications' that integrate with your iOS devices. Your Mac can send Notifications to your iPhone, and when Mail Notifications come in, you don't have 2-3 devices all going DING at the same time.
2/ More process oriented, 'from the user, and the user wants to know' Notifications. Things that GrowlMail & GrowlSafari used to address, things that I have to hack in Hazel like this:
https://github.com/leoofborg/SDDD
That's my 2 yen.
-Leo
#